Friday, July 9, 2010

The 2010 Electorate by State

Last week we got whacked by a bunch of Democrats for putting out a Wisconsin poll with an electorate they thought was too skewed toward John McCain voters. This week we got whacked by a bunch of Republicans for putting out a Kentucky poll with an electorate they thought was too skewed toward Barack Obama voters. I stand by both those polls.

There is no doubt in my mind that the 2010 electorate nationally as a whole will be more Republican friendly than the ones in 2006 and 2008. I don't think that the shift in the electorate will be identical in every state though. There will be some states where the electorate is very similar to who turned out in 2008, and there are others where it will really be more Republican leaning this time around.

We already saw this in the 2009 elections. There was a huge drop in Democratic turnout in Virginia, but a much smaller one in New Jersey. Jon Corzine's loss had less to do with Obama voters not coming back out than it did with those Obama voters supporting Chris Christie.

Recently our polls have found Democratic interest in places like Texas and Kentucky pretty similar to what it was in 2008. That makes sense. For one thing the Obama operation was not strongly contesting those states, so they may not have seen huge spikes in Democratic turnout to begin with. But the main races in those states are also the kind that you would expect to keep party voters engaged. In Texas Democrats have a strong challenger for Governor in Bill White and an unpopular Republican incumbent in Rick Perry. In Kentucky you have the prospect of Rand Paul getting elected to shake Democratic voters out of their slumber.

On the other hand our recent polls in places like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Iowa have suggested very large drops in Democratic turnout for this year. There are some common threads that draw those states together- all three have extremely unpopular Democratic Governors and all three have higher than usual numbers of Obama voters who have since moved into the disapproval column when it comes to him. It makes sense that Democratic voters might be less inclined to come out this year in places where they haven't been real thrilled with the performance of the folks they voted in the last few cycles.

There will definitely be an overall drop in Democratic turnout this year- just don't expect it to happen to the same degree in every state.

22 comments:

The prospect of Rand Paul being elected would motivate all informed, rational people to turn out to support Rand Paul. No one with any common sense at all has a problem with Rand Paul becoming senator.

There is absolutely no reason any rational American has any reason to fear a principled man like Rand Paul becoming Senator. Only delusional nuts aren't on board with Rand Paul being senator.

Accept it: Senator Rand Paul!!

It gives you HOPE for the future. Rand Paul is Change you can Believe in!!

It is quite clear that Americans want principled candidates like Rand Paul and Sharron Angle. For Democrats to PRETEND that these great candidates aren't exactly what America wants, needs, and deserves just proves how DELUSIONAL and out of touch the far-left wing Democratic party has become.

Anytime you try to insinuate that Rand Paul is somehow outside the mainstream of American politics, you forfeit any respectability. Rand Paul IS the voice of the people. American politics have been hijacked by leftist career politicians for so long that you don't even recognize what the mainstream of American thought is anymore. Rand Paul IS the mainstream. Limiting government IS mainstream. Cutting taxes IS mainstream. Recognizing the need to reform entitlements IS mainstream.

There is NOTHING about Rand Paul and Sharron Angle that is not completely representative of the mainstream. If you don't know that Rand Paul and Sharron Angle are mainstream, it just proves how extremist and misguided YOU are.

In 2008 New Jersey was 44% D/28% R/28% i. In 2009 it was 41% D/31% R/ 28% I. While that wasn't as big as Virginia a 6% drop in party gap would be a disaster for Democrats. Between 2004 and 2006 Democrats only gained 6% in 7 states. If the electorate returns to 2004 distribution you're talking about an average Republican gain of 6.5%.

It takes a very special kind of lunatic to believe that Rand Paul represents anything more than a fringe movement. Only a tiny fraction of Americans support his extremist views on civil rights (and how he openly and on the record acknowledged that he believes businesses should be allowed to discriminate on a racial basis), on education (and eliminating the department thereof), foreign affairs (and drastically reducing US overseas influence), and agriculture (eliminating the crop subsidization process that reduced the level of risk to farmers by annual wild swings in market conditions). It should be plainly obvious to anyone with sense that a Republican who can't post a substantial lead in a state as red as Kentucky is far, far out of the mainstream.

Rand Paul and his supporters are delusional fanatics. Any sane Republican in Kentucky (like Grayson) would have taken the Kentucky Senate race off the table entirely. It takes a very special kind of kook to make that race competitive, let alone tied as Rand Paul has.

As far as Reid and Angle go, Angle does believe abortion should not be legal even in the case of rape. And she's a nutbag who obviously realizes the extremity of her positions since she took down her original website and scrubbed it of her controversial views, then threatened to sue Reid and the NV Dems for republishing an archive of her old website, which is public domain. She's all but guaranteed Harry Reid will remain Majority Leader next January. Thanks, Nevada Republicans!

14% of Americans support Sharron Angle's wacky and far-right anti-choice absolutism. The other 86% agree that insistence on forcing a rape victim to bear her attacker's child is unconscionably cruel. Her clumsy attempt to hide her views from being publicized with a copy of her own website only drew more attention to just how far her Tea Party views are from those of sensible mainstream Americans.

ALL RATIONAL PEOPLE know that the federal government has NO ROLE in education and that the department of education SHOULD BE ABOLISHED. Angle is to be PRAISED for doing the right thing in calling for its abolition.

EVERYTHING Angle and Rand Paul stand for is praiseworthy. The more a rational person learns about Angle and Rand Paul, the more they support them.

NRH, you are an absolute lunatic if you don't acknowledge that Rand Paul REPRESENTS AMERICA. Rand Paul is so much more mainstream than any Democrat would ever be. Rand Paul is absolutely right on civil rights, absolutely right on education, absolutely right on agriculture subsidies. It should be completely obvious to anyone who has any intelligence at all that Rand Paul has ALL THE CORRECT POSITIONS on all the key issues. Anyone with any understanding of America stands with Rand Paul (or is on the right of him).

Rand Paul has THE CORRECT stance on education, agriculture, and the Constitution. If you don't recognize that Rand Paul is right on all of the issues you mentioned, you are severely misinformed and misguided.

I can't wait until we call Rand Paul senator and Sharron Angle senator. When we get PRINCIPLED people like Rand Paul and Sharron Angle elected, we can finally make real PROGRESS at restoring the promise of America.

It takes a very special kind of lunatic to believe that Rand Paul represents some kind of fringe movement. He believes government shouldn't dictate how a private business operates. What business owner wants government dictating to them?

Paul supports equal rights for everyone and only a big negative ad buy from the Democrats (or the MSM) will convince people he's a racist.

Eliminating the Department of Education is pretty much a mainstream Republican view. The states are responsible for schools. The Department of Education is responsible for no schools.

Paul's opinion that we should bring our troops home now from Iraq and Afghanistan isn't a mainstream Republican view. It is a mainstream Democratic view, however.

Of the 30 states that have registration by party Kentucky's 57% Democratic electorate is the HIGHEST in America. Yes, Mitch McConnell did get 24% of the Democratic vote in 2008, but that's still a formidable number of registered Democrats.

Herbie's getting a little frothy-at-the-mouth lately. Did someone forget to give him his pills? He's gone around the bend to the point where he thinks that including the worlds "ALL RATIONAL" in ALL CAPS without any actual backing somehow constitutes making a point.

Apparently in his world the ALL RATIONAL population of the US constitutes a maximum of 14% of the population, since ALL RATIONAL Americans support Sharron Angle more and more with everything she does and only 14% of Americans support her extremist views on abortion, a similarly small minority support Rand Paul's views on the Civil Rights Act, 77% of (IRRATIONAL!) Americans disagree with him on abolishing farm subsidies, and so on. But as far as Herbie's considered, 14% support means 'mainstream!' Feel free to find some actualy, y'know, evidence to back up assertions to the contrary, if you think you can; it's getting pretty boring reading the inane and unsupported assertions of complete dominance in the court of public opinion in every HIGHLY CAPITALIZED post.

Herbie's even lost the use of basic math skills - even presuming that Herbie and his hard-on for Rand Paul have decided that PPP isn't reliable (and hence are posting on PPP's blog out of raw dementia), Rasmussen is the only pollster with a poll on the race in the last month (making a very slim sample for 'all' polls) - and lo and behold, with a 4.5% margin of error, Rand Paul did not have a nine point lead, even with the infamously Republican-leaning Rasmussen 'likely voter' screen applied. Similarly, the only poll in the last month in the Nevada race is a month-old Rasmussen poll showing exactly identical results to the Kentucky poll, oddly enough! So... two polls between them does make 'polls,' but Rasmussen's early polling is hardly 'reliable' (unless somehow Rand Paul gave up 16 points in the space of a week, as Rasmussen reported after claiming a 25 point lead in their initial attempt to set a narrative), and even if Rasmussen is accepted then neither one of them reached that 'twice the margin of error' threshold!

But I'm sure ALL RATIONAL people have THE CORRECT way to calculate that 2*4.5 = 7, right?

How does your theory that the KY Dem/GOP ratio will be the same jibe with the fact that more GOP turned out for the primary this year there than ever in the history of primaries in KY?

And I agree with the comments above. Rand Paul speaks for the people. It is only liberals who think he is divergent enough from THEIR views to make him extreme. And wasn't it Gallup that recently said there are 2 to 1 conservatives to liberals in this country? In KY, many of those conservatives are Democrats.

Primary electorates aren't strong indicators of general election turn-outs. In 2008 there were almost 50% more Republicans than Democrats in the Alaska primary. Ted Stevens still lost. In Missouri more people turned out for the Republican gubernatorial primary than the Democratic one. Yet Hulshof got clobbered. Keep in mind that nearly four times as many people voted in the general.

In North Carolina Democrats got about 1.5 million votes in the primary, while Republicans got around 500,000. Yet the gubernatorial race was close.

NRH must be a big fan of President Obama. Both create strawmen by exaggerating the Republican position. Rand Paul doesn't oppose the Civil Rights Act, but if we take his concern about government interference and twist it we can say he's calling for the repeal.

Sharron Angle is pro-life. Gallup says that the majority of America is pro-life. You can create a strawman by saying she's not just pro-life she's something more, but people who are pro-life will vote for her.

PPP's data contains too many Democrats. If we take their numbers and apply what the electorate will likely be a 43-43 tie is a 46-40 Paul lead.

Sharron Angle is at the extreme anti-abortion position of preferring to bar all abortions regardless of whether the pregnancy might have come about because of rape or incest. No matter how DBL or Herbie might try to spin it, polling routinely indicates that only 14% of Americans believe in Sharron Angle's extreme absolutist position. And it's quite hard to claim that Rand Paul doesn't oppose the Civil Rights Act when he explicitly stated that he opposes one of its central provisions.

NRH, like all liberals you need to create strawmen to bolster your argument. I won't argue on what Sharron Angle believes. I know that you believe that until a baby has been in the womb for months its rights are overridden by the mother's wishes. The idea that all life is precious is as you say, "extremist."

Sadly you don't even read your own "Huffington Post" website. Angle expressed her personal beliefs but in no way has advocated changing the law.

To some of us it's disturbing for the government to tell us what we can and can't do and we believe that should extend to other people, including we detest. That's what Paul has expressed. He's also said that the 1964 Civil Rights Act is fine just as it is and he, in no way, favors repeal of any provision. Did the "Huffington Post" miss that?

So I'll defend your right to twist and misrepresent what they'd do in office all you want. The Democrats have no positive record to run on and that's what you usually do when you're in the majority.

So the only solution is to resort to the politics of fear. Create straw men so that America will vote for people they want out of office by making them afraid of their opponents. I'm sure you can get people to believe that Sharron Angle will introduce a bill outlawing abortion under all circumstances and that Rand Paul's first order of business is to repeal the Civil Rights Act and win that way.